Unmatched Tourney Results – SoBo 2026!

If you are a regular attendee at SoBo, you know that Friday afternoon is traditionally our set up day, which never took us as long as we expected. So, we usually had time to play games on Friday night, just the volunteers and our out-of-town friends that showed up to help. It was quiet but it always felt a little empty in the big hall. 

This year, we decided to make Friday an official part of the Festival, and I had two ideas. The first was to host the First Annual BJ’s Campfire Sing-a-long and Board Game night at a local pub, mixing in two of my favorite hobbies. But, other than Patrick & Cindy Newman, I didn’t really feel any rising level of excitement from the SoBo Krewe. 

So instead, some of the Board Game Gumbo krewe (me, Jerod and Bradly) hosted our “first annual” Unmatched tournament! As soon as we announced it on our email blast, I fully expected to lock in 16 eager players ready to battle for the championship. Reality set in quickly. For weeks, we only had four or five players signed up, but I was still planning for 16 players just in case (and had plenty of promo items from Restoration Games to give out.) 

Quelle surprise ! Almost two dozen gamers showed up at the start time on Friday (and 15 officially signed up). We had enough walk-ups that Jerod, Doug and I all gave up our spots. It turned out to be a wonderful twist, because it allowed Jerod to focus on running the bracket that Andrew Bucholtz had designed, and allowed us to walk around and answer any questions players had about the rules. Bradly, who you might remember from our “big game” unboxing videos, came in from Texas and organized the character boxes to make it easier to tear down. Big thanks!

Even though I didn’t play, I loved watching new and experienced players go head-to-head in friendly combat. But what about the format? For the longest time, I wanted to set up pool play, followed by a “final four”. But we only had two hours to complete the event, so on the advice of the GMs at Restoration Games, we went with a modified blitz format. 

Jerod and I reviewed the roughly 52 different Unmatched characters that I brought. We used some of the online tier lists to make combos of two different characters. In total, we picked out sixteen different pairs, and then randomly assigned the pairs into the bracket and to the players. The twist is that each player now had two characters to choose from, and could play either in each match. We tried our best to spread out the power characters, but were more focused on having two different types from different sets — one of the characters would be straightforward to play (like Alice) while the other character would feature some of the trickier combos. 

Here’s how the tournament shook out. In the first round, the standout matches to me were:
— a very quick victory of Chupacabra (played by Chris) over Ghost Rider
— an interesting, but long battle between Angel and Squirrel Girl (two characters that seemed to take a long time to punch out the other) 
— in a surprise to me, Spencer’s The Winter Soldier beat Bruce Lee, as normally Lee’s double turn cards wreak havoc on the other players. 
— David Miller started out with Black Panther and topped Black Widow pretty handily

In the second round, Alice (played by Ethan all the way through the tourney) beat up on the Winter Soldier, Chupacabra again bested its opponent, (this time, Miss Marvel). Medusa (played by Gabe, who went 2-1 in the tournament) downed Sherlock Holmes, and David Miller switched from Black Panther to Yennenga and won decisively. 

And then there were four….

David (Yennenga), Gabriel (Medusa), Chris (Chupacabra), and Ethan (Alice) all made it to the final four. Courtesy of Restoration Games, each of the finalists got bonus promo foil cards and then took each other on. Yennenga’s ranged weapons proved too strong even for the fury of Chris’s Chupacabra (although it was a long, tough match that came down to the last turn) while Alice outlasted Medusa by eliminating her sidekicks pretty quickly. 

The finals were set, with two very strong players (who happened to be friends and fellow gamers from the same area). David brought out Yennenga again, while Ethan played Alice again, and this was one of the longer matches. Eventually, Alice emerged victorious, and we awarded Ethan a gift certificate to Sanctuary Comics & Games as well as a gorgeous trophy made by Carlos from the Beans & Dice Podcast.

What a blast! Thanks again to Restoration Games and Beans & Dice Podcast for making this a special event. It really kicked off the Friday night portion of SoBo the right way, and I’m looking forward to hosting the tourney again next year. 

Unless I hear a second for the campfire sing-a-long? 

Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo